BARNACLES! I know. It seems strange. But they do. The largest penis in the world! (Relative to body size that is… The actual largest penis belongs to *SHOCKER!* the largest animal, the blue whale.) Barnacle penises are up to 8 times their body size. In human terms, this would be like a 6 foot tall man having 48 foot long penis!

You may be wondering… Why do barnacles have such long penises? Well the answer is simple… SEX! Okay, so maybe I should explain. Barnacles are sessile, meaning they don’t move. Could you imagine trying to have sex without moving? It’d be quite difficult! Barnacles are hermaphroditic and lay on their backs, so they have extra long penises to reach across to their neighbor and fertilize their neighbor’s eggs. In return, their neighbors (sometimes multiple) fertilize their eggs. And what about those lonely barnacles all by their lonesome? Well they fertilize themselves. Power to the species!

Here you have it folks. There are the African forest elephants and the African savanna elephants.

Modern genetics really is amazing what it can determine. Apparently the difference between the two is as old as the difference between chimps and humans. Whoda thunk it?

Now I’m going to be honest. I can’t tell the difference between the two, and I don’t doubt that a number of people at zoos will confuse the two as well. Supposedly there is a significant size difference between the two, but I can’t tell from the pictures. I’d like to see 10 of each new species next to each other, so I could attempt to see the size difference.

I have two questions about this whole thing:

1. How significant are the genetic differences between the two species? The human and chimp genomes are 98% similar. What’s the percent similarity between the two species, and why is it significant to determine that there are in fact two distinct species here?

This is the reindeer, or as we call it in North America, the caribou, and while it can’t fly or make coffee, it is a pretty neat animal. The caribou is a medium to large-sized deer, not quite as big as an elk (Cervus canadensis) but much larger than the traditional white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) or even a mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). Caribou are relatively unique among the deer family because both the males and females grow antlers, although the males’ antlers are larger than the females’. There are many subspecies of caribou, as it is found in both tundra and taiga in North America, Scandinavia, and Russia. They can also be found dodging bullets from Sarah Palin.

Here are some caribou fun facts you might not know:

1. They’re tasty! New York City has hot dog vendors. Anchorage, Alaska has reindeer sausage vendors, which is basically just a hot dog made form caribou meat. In Alaska, caribou outnumber people, so each year, Alaskans fill their freezers with freshly-killed caribou.

2. They’re marathon runners … sort of. The subspecies we are familiar with in North America are famous for their long migrations. They often travel up to 50 miles per day and 3000 miles per year. For a size reference, it is only 2451 miles from Los Angeles to New York using the City Distance Tool.

3. Their most fierce predators are 5 and 30 times smaller than the caribou. The most prolific predator of caribou is the gray wolf (Canis lupus), which weighs in at about 80lb. The second most prolific predator is actually the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), which at its maximum is only about 15lb. Gray wolves use their speed and strength in numbers to attack caribou, while golden eagles prey on the caribou newborn calves. Caribou also have to deal with the traditionally pesky mosquitos (Family Culicidae), which in Alaska are HUGE!

Hope you like the facts, and come back again for the next installment of MotherNaturesPen.